Tiger Woods: 2009 PGA Tour Player Of The Year

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Tiger Woods was voted the PGA Tour player of the year by the players on Friday, the 10th time in his 13 years on tour that he has won the award.

The PGA Tour does not disclose vote totals.

Woods started and finished the season the same way – with questions when he would return. He was coming off knee surgery at the beginning of the year, and last week announced an indefinite leave to work on his marriage after admitting to infidelity.

In between, he won six PGA Tour events, captured the FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus, won the money title for the ninth time in his career with over $10.5 million, and had the lowest scoring average for the ninth time.

No one else won more than three times on the PGA Tour. It was only the second time that Woods was voted player of the year when he did not win a major. In a peculiar twist, Woods won in his final start before each of the four majors.

Marc Leishman of Australia was voted PGA Tour rookie of the year, becoming the first since Charles Howell III in 2001 to win the award without having won a tournament. Leishman was the only rookie to reach the FedEx Cup finale at the Tour Championship.

Players voted on the awards over the last month, with balloting ending Friday.

It was the eighth time that Woods has swept all the major PGA Tour honors – Byron Nelson Award for the lowest adjusted scoring average (68.05), Arnold Palmer Award for the money title and Jack Nicklaus Award for player of the year.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 3rd graf to correct to "indefinite")

Comments

[VivaldiPickpocket]

01:12 PM on 12/20/2009

I'd like to know who this Source fellow is that keeps supplying us with all these nuggets of truth that so many have chewed so religiously their teeth are all now filled with gold?

[Intelligentia]

01:14 AM on 12/20/2009

Congrats, Tiger! Please, take care of your personal life and come back; hopefully, sooner than expected!

[auteur]

07:24 PM on 12/19/2009

Last time I checked it doesn't go: birdie, par, bogey, adulterer. In my opinion this story is a modern equivalent to the Fatty Arbuckle scandal. Once again America devours it greatest loved figures in order to feed it's distorted puritanical self-loathing. To idealize anyone is ridiculous no matter what they achieve and is behavioral neurosis to begin with, you're all nuts if you think you have the right to judge anyone's private disgression. As if anyone is better then average in this society of apathy.

[VivaldiPickpocket]

12:44 PM on 12/20/2009

Bravo!

America needs to go on a low pulpit diet before it explodes from moral constipation.

[sweetwhine]

10:38 PM on 12/20/2009

Double fanned!

[highflag]

06:04 PM on 12/19/2009

Their is nothing "ill-timed" about the award. He is , without a doubt, the best golfer alive. His personal conduct has no bearing on that.

I don't recall who wrote the piece, but when this all started to break, someone wrote a column comparing Tiger to his good friend Derek Jeter. On the night when another woman had come forward to cash in on the scandal, Jeter was receiving an "Athlete of the Year" award from some organization.

The author noted that Jeter has been linked with a litany of actresses, singers, supermodels, etc. over the course of his career. The only difference between he and Tiger is that he chose to remain single. If Woods wasn't married no one would care how many strippers/porn stars/cocktail waitresses he was "dating."

So the lesson here is that young superstar athletes should wait until their 40's before they consider becoming monogamous. I've been happily married for 30+ years and I love my wife deeply. but if I had young hotties throwing themselves my way in my 30's, I'm not so sure...

Personally I'm ready to give Tiger a break and move on. His marriage is probably irreparably damaged, which is too bad for he and his wife a kids, but none of our business. I anxiously await his return to the tour...

[auteur]

07:35 PM on 12/19/2009

Exposing marriage as infalable apparently will get you tarred and feather, especially if you don't want to discuss it with the "public", you get those soccer mom's on your side they'll shank you if you stop drinking their kool-aid.

[jade7243]

08:57 PM on 12/20/2009

absolutely... nothing "ill-timed" about it. This is the time of year when the award is given. it is exactly on time. And well-deserved by the man who won it for the 10th time in 13 years.

Athlete of the Decade (AP)
Player of the Year (PGA)
Fed-Ex Cup
phenomenal play at the President's Cup
17 events, 15 top tens, 6 wins, number on the money list...

well-timed and well-deserved.

I, too, can't wait for Tiger's return.

[balancedsolution]

04:31 PM on 12/19/2009

separate the player from the playa!

[blahdiblah]

11:42 PM on 12/19/2009

well said.

[ontariogirl]

10:03 AM on 12/20/2009

Spot on.

[poaster]

04:12 PM on 12/19/2009

More good news he just signed a 5 yr $5million/yr endorsement deal with Fidelity.

[ChrisDWard]

02:51 PM on 12/19/2009

And he deserves congrats for being named POY. He certainly earned it, and the award is well-timed despite all this other stuff. Thank goodness it's based strictly on his golfing achievements and ability. Tiger's golfing talent has nothing to do with any of this other crap, and it can't be taken away from him. I hope he gets back to serious golf just as soon as possible, and the sooner he does the better for all concerned.

[AsISaid]

12:48 PM on 12/19/2009

"Player" of the Year.

So ironically rich, no comment is necessary

[sweetwhine]

12:19 PM on 12/19/2009

Tiger did win. This comes as no surprise.

[Greg Petty]

02:59 PM on 12/19/2009

His surprise golf can no longer shield bad behavior

[Greg Petty]

12:14 PM on 12/19/2009

Ihave a great life , quit defending the indefensible

[sweetwhine]

12:22 PM on 12/19/2009

Who's defending him? I'm also not ecstatic about the mess he's in either. I hope he can work this out with his family. I wish them the very best. Can you say the same?

[Greg Petty]

01:06 PM on 12/19/2009

Yes ,I hope things work out for them, and wish them only good,but he went beyond limits ,what a wife should bear

[Thinklongterm]

11:51 PM on 12/20/2009

How do we know how great your life is? It's easy to get behind your keyboard and throw stones at the latest celebrity meltdown. The dude cheated on his wife and she's dumping him. It happens everyday.

[Greg Petty]

12:20 AM on 12/21/2009

HE cheated on a colossal scale,cheating is one thing but damn you gotta admit he set some kind of record,I am on a keyboard as YOU are,I feel for him and his family, meltdown,he was a super nova, Iam not throwing stones, all of his wounds were self inflicted, and your rational is like saying secretariat was a plow horse, things like this do not happen everyday, So you are right and everybody else is wrong, get over it

[lynettema]

11:21 AM on 12/19/2009

Ill timed? Perfectly timed. The golf community have been grown ups about this from the beginning. They wished Tiger and Elin well and hoped they could work things out. Too bad the rest of the media could not have followed their lead. Not to mention the people on this post who have never committed a sin. Expected better from the readers of HP.

[sweetwhine]

12:30 PM on 12/19/2009

You did? I not surprised by these negative comments at all. Tiger is the most famous athlete in the world...he turned golf on it's head and many hate him for it.

[Teresa201]

09:21 PM on 12/19/2009

Apparently his peers, the other players, have no ploblem with Tiger........
They just voted him PGA Player of the Year!

He didn't hurt golf........
You just saw some truths come out about the tour...
And it's not just Tiger.....
And it's all been done before.

[CaliTLC]

03:23 AM on 12/19/2009

Tiger deserves the award. The players got it right.

[PAsteelers]

04:42 AM on 12/19/2009

His skills as a golfer are undeniable. So the award is deserved.

Just because he is a horny whoremonger who married his viloent golddigging
wife and will be taken for everything he has legitimately earned is irrelevant to
this award. But he is a big dummie!

[Greg Petty]

11:44 AM on 12/19/2009

That coward is hiding out,she was not the problem he is,and he should get skinned for it

[CaliTLC]

02:32 PM on 12/19/2009

Thankfully, Tiger's got a prenuptial agreement that will be upheld in court. She will only get what the prenup says. He must have been listening to Kanye's "Golddigga" and took it to heart. HA.

[sweetwhine]

12:30 PM on 12/19/2009

He won.

[Greg Petty]

02:57 PM on 12/19/2009

He lost

[Chilito]

02:21 AM on 12/19/2009

Well, if Woods is too embarrassed to show to accept the award, I'm sure Obama would be happy to do it for him.

[PAsteelers]

04:45 AM on 12/19/2009

it depends, Are you embarrassed by your rididculos comment. Of course you are
a dumb repug. Because you lie, deny and criticise. lol

[proud afro canadian]

08:44 AM on 12/19/2009

I will say it...and will say it again.

This is Tiger Woods issue to the media is a white and black issue.

If he was /w/a/n/g/i/n/g/ a black or non-white girl it would have been a non issue.

[RACVC]

10:25 AM on 12/19/2009

You can't be serious. The ethnicity of the women he cheated with is irrelevant. He is a married father who sold an image to us fools for a fortune. He is a serial cheater and scammer.
Deserved the PGA award this year, however.

[Greg Petty]

11:46 AM on 12/19/2009

that is bullshi$ , he could be green and an alien,their is no excuse for excessive bad behavior

[roninroshi]

11:07 PM on 12/18/2009

He is the "Player" of the year...

[isaidit]

07:24 AM on 12/19/2009

Playa.

[blogisti]

09:37 PM on 12/18/2009

Apparently the only thing true about Tiger is his golfing ability.

[duze]

03:30 AM on 12/19/2009

Is anything else about him really any of your business.

[kalapa]

04:55 AM on 12/19/2009

I wonder what he has to do in his "personal life" for it to be considered "our business" by the likes of duze: MURDER?

[Greg Petty]

11:48 AM on 12/19/2009

No,but with fame comes a price, it puts you in the spotlight like it or not